Most people know that they need to lift weight build muscles. However many just want to have nice muscle tone and an attractive but not too muscular body as they do not want big muscles. So they just lift light weights with high repetitions. Well, it is not going to work. To have nice muscle tone, you will have to build some muscles right? So you will have to lift heavy to force your muscles to grow. Once you are satisfied with the size of your muscles, you will then need to cut your body fats for your muscles to show up well and that means nice muscle tone.

You need to have a solid commitment and knowledge to get nice muscle tone and build an attractive muscular body. Here are some muscle building tips. Before you commence weight training, remember to warm up and as well as doing some stretching exercises.

•Train Muscle With Free Weights

Machines will have its uses, but for a start, concentrate on free weights. That means work almost exclusively with barbells and dumb bells. Free weights recruit many stabilizing muscles for balance and control. That means you will work a lot more muscle parts other than the intended ones. That will give rise to little bumps, striations and definitions all over your body instead of one huge lump of muscle on your intended muscle. Because of the extra stimulant created, your muscles grow faster too. Why else do you think all professional body builders almost exclusively use free weights?

•Train With Compound Exercises

Incorporate as many compound exercises as possible to your routines. Compound exercises are exercises that involve 2 or more joint movements. Because they utilize more joints, which means greater muscle mass are involved. Greater muscle mass means heavier weights. Heavier weights mean encouragement of greater muscle growth. More muscle growth means more tone to your muscles.

Some excellent compound exercises are the Squat, Deadlift, Chin ups, Dips, Bench press, Barbell Press, Lunges, Bent-Over Barbell Row…etc.

•Train Intensively But Do Not Over train

You must train intensively for your muscle to grow. Try to do more reps or add more weight than the previous session or else your muscles will think (actually muscles don’t think, they adapt), “Ah… we’ve done that. Nothing new, so no need to grow bigger and stronger.” That being the case, you will wreck your chances of attaining an attractive muscular body.

Because of this, it is important that every time you train hard, you give your body time to recover as it has suffered strains and actually sustained many small scarring. Contrary to popular belief, your muscles grow when you rest, especially when you sleep and not in the gym. So sleep at least 8 hours a day. Also, do not train everyday or work the same muscle group more than once or twice a week. If your training was vigorous enough, do no more than an hour per session.

Try not to do cardio work on the same day as your weight lifting work. In fact, during the muscle building phase, you should do less cardio work as aerobic exercises burn muscles. You can increase your cardio work at cutting body fat phase, so as to lose body fat in order for your muscle tone to show up nicely.

•Technique And Form

This is the most neglected fundamental of bodybuilding. Everywhere, everyday, you will see people using wrong forms and techniques. This not only compromises your growth, it will also make you susceptible to injuries… sometimes even permanently putting you out of the gym.

Wrong form occurs usually when people try to lift weights that are too heavy, whether out of vanity or ignorance. As a guide, always lift with strict focus on the muscle you intend to build for that exercise. Feel it contract and extend. Lift the weights deliberately and slowly. Never ever swing your weights up especially when doing bicep curls or the military press.

•To Build Muscles Fast You Must Perform Lower Body Exercises!

This is what most people don’t realize. Your lower body makes up 60-70% of your musculature. If you don’t train them, not only will you look spider-legged, your entire body will not grow as quickly and as large. Don’t think that you can hide those skinny limbs in pants! Most people do not train their legs because squats, dead lifts and lunges can be very grueling exercises. But it is precisely because of such intensity that you will produce more growth hormones when you sleep and overall muscular development is stimulated. Your body shape will also be more balanced and therefore more attractive.

Do read up more to understand how your muscles work and then work on it so that in no time you will be a proud owner of a well tone attractive muscular body.

For someone who is thin, building muscle mass can be very difficult without some professional help. Where for some fortunate genetically blessed people, gaining muscle mass very fast is a breeze. Therefore if you are trying to figure out how long does it take to build muscle mass, there is simply no straight forward answer.

Firstly, do take note that muscles do not usually grow in a linear process but in a series of spurts. Therefore no matter how hard you work your muscles or how much you eat, muscle growth will not be at a predictable steady pace.

That said, let’s take a look at the factors which influence muscle growth. As you probably know, there are many factors influencing your muscle growth and not everyone will build muscles at the same pace even though they may be working out with the same weight, exercises and eating the same food.

Some people are genetically predisposed to gaining muscle mass and these folks will see impressive results within only a few months. We all know that the Mesomorphs (sporty body type) will be able to build muscles muuch faster than the Ectomorphs (thin body type).

Your rate of your muscle gain will also depend largely on how close you are to the upper limit of what you naturally are capable of in terms of gaining muscle mass. This phenomenon is also known as the adaptation ceiling in bodybuilding speak.

This gors to say that the closer you are to the upper limit of the adaptation ceiling, the slower your muscle will grow. That means that someone who has been lifting weights for a number of years will gain muscle mass much more slowly than a newbie to weight training.

It is not uncommon for people to gain fat when they are building muscle mass. The amount of fat you gain will depend on how much you eat and also on how lean you are when you started to fuel your muscle growth with what you eat. Eating to fuel muscle gain is called overfeeding in the bodybuilding lingo.

Studies have shown that during a period of overfeeding, you will gain more muscle and less fat if you are the naturally lean type. During the cutting phase to get rid of body fat so as to show muscle definition, it is known that fatter people tend to lose more fat and less muscle when they cut, but the leaner ones will find it the harder to lose fat without losing muscle.

Why is this so? Well, it may only be a psychological reason. If you have just worked your butt off to get your well defined six pack abs, then you will not want to put the fat on again and so you may simply be reluctant to eat the amount of food necessary to gain significant muscle mass, don’t you think so?

It could also be hormonal factor as some studies do show a link between low body fat and low testosterone(male muscle buiding hormones) levels. If your testosterone is low, it is also difficult for you to gain muscle mass.

So how long does it take to build muscle mass will depend very much on your genetic condition and other factors besides doing the proper workouts and eating correctly.

Okay skinny guys, listen up: You can build muscle. That’s right, you, skinny guys, can build muscle. And it’s not nearly as difficult as you might imagine.

Outlined below are some common reasons why skinny guys don’t see muscle gains with their routines, and how to help the skinny build muscle.

Working Out Too Much

If you’re skinny, build muscle by conserving calories and maximizing your workout sessions. Do not, I repeat, do not spend hours in the gym doing tons of reps with light weights. Your body grows when it’s resting, contrary to what you might think, and if you spend hours burning calories and not enough time resting, you won’t give your body a chance to recover, repair your muscles, and grow.

Choose a few effective, compound exercises, find your maximum weight per exercise, and knock out no more than 10 or 12 sets per workout until you start to build muscle and bulk up. Only then will you be able to add more sets and be able to expend more calories without waning away to nothing.

Doing the Wrong Exercises

Isolation exercises are not the way to go from skinny to building muscle. Skinny guys cannot afford to expend the calories needed to do these fairly inefficient exercises. Stick to compound, multi-muscle-group exercises like deadlifts, barbell squats, dips, push-ups, chin-ups and any other exercises that involve more than one muscle group and move more than one joint during the exercise. Conserve your calories and maximize your workout time.

Wasting Calories with Cardio

Sure, you are skinny now, but you say you don’t want to be fat, either. If you struggle to gain weight then you should not worry about this at all. Don’t worry about spending time on the treadmill right now in an effort to avoid getting fat.

With the smart lifting you’ll be doing, and the smart foods you’ll be eating, becoming fat will be the last thing you need to worry about during your quest to build muscle. Besides you can always tone after you have gained some mass.

Not Eating Right / Not Eating Enough

Eat. Eat again. And eat the right foods! Fill up with lean proteins like meat, fish, poultry and eggs, complex carbs for glucose (muscle fuel) and take it easy on fat (but include some good fats to keep your body running properly and burning fat instead of storing it). Try to avoid the beer, fried foods and sugary sweets; this type of eating plan will help the skinny build muscle.

If you want to throw a protein powder into the mix, you should still aim to get most of your protein from your food, because a protein powder really is a supplement. No more than three shakes per day is a reasonable amount if you eat six times a day, but for most people that is excessive if you are eating right and getting protein from your food sources. In short, protein powders as a supplement are fine; protein powders alone will not make the skinny build muscle.

Rest and Relaxation

Your body needs downtime to repair its systems–not only your muscular system but your immune system, cardiovascular system, endocrine system–you name it, it needs rest to repair itself and function properly. In terms of muscle growth, your muscles need rest time to give the fibers a chance to grow, and if you hit the gym too soon after your last workout, you’ll damage those new fibers and you won’t see the muscle gains you’ve been working so hard to achieve.

Improper Technique

You can put all the weight in the gym on your barbell and hoist it up and down, but if you have to rely on momentum, chances are you’ll be laid out with a back injury before you know it.

Be smart about your technique and the amount of weight you use to go from being skinny to building muscle quickly and effectively. Challenge yourself enough to see results but not so much that it compromises form, and always be aware of your movements and you’ll see results.